This paper utilizes the data obtained from fieldwork conducted at Vajrayana Institute, a Buddhist centre affiliated with the worldwide Gelugpa Tibetan Foundation for the Preservation of the Mahayana Tradition (FPMT), to explore the approach to and practice of Tantra in a contemporary Western Buddhist context. In particular, this paper highlights the seriousness with which Tantra is treated in this religious setting, challenging Urbanís statement, largely based on his examination of the Western appropriation of Hindu Tantra, that the West has appropriated Tantra as a form of spiritual hedonism. The paper describes the orientation toward Tantric activity within the FPMT by outlining its relationship to the following aspects of religious activity: to sutra study and practice, ethical training and the Mahayana motivation, the role of taking refuge, and to the purpose of initiation and keeping Tantric commitments.

Article

In his book Tantra: Sex, Secrecy, Politics, and Power in the
Study of Religion, (1) Urban makes two statements about the
nature of Tantra as a religious phenomenon. First, he states
that Tantra cannot be viewed as a unitary religious phenomenon,
and second, that its appropriation by modern Western culture is
largely as a form of spiritual hedonism. There is scholarly
agreement with Urban’s first point; Wayman and Guenther both
distinguish between Hindu and Buddhist Tantra (2). With respect
to Urban’s second point, Tantra as spiritual hedonism, it
is significant that his book reflects an emphasis on the appropriation
of Hindu Tantra by the West (3). If we are to take Urban’s
direction, and view Tantra as ‘a shifting category, to be
understood in terms of its embodied forms: specific forms of discourse,
ritual acts, and its expression by historical actors, and in its
specific lived, social, and historical contexts,’ then we
must be mindful of differences between its Hindu and Buddhist manifestations
in the West. Samuel comments that by the late 1990s Tibetan
Buddhism in the West was characterized by a strong emphasis on tradition,
a puritanical atmosphere at dharma group meetings, and
no sexuality except for the imagery (4). These are in line
with my own observations of Tibetan Buddhism as it is practiced
within the Foundation for the Preservation of the Mahayana Tradition (FPMT),
founded in 1975, a worldwide Tibetan Buddhist organization of the
Gelugpa Tibetan lineage (5), and its affiliated centre, Vajrayana
Institute, in Sydney, Australia.

An exploration of the salient
characteristics of Tantric activity at Vajrayana Institute will
highlight the relationship between its Buddhist nature, and the
seriousness with which it is treated in this religious setting. These characteristics emerge from
a consideration of the relationship of Tantra to the following:
to sutra study and practice, to the Mahayana motivation, to the
act of taking refuge, to the purpose of initiation and maintenance
of secrecy, to the purpose of deity visualization, and to practitioners’ own
approaches and experiences. Exploration of these facets of
Tantric activity will show that Tantra’s embodiment within
the religious perspective of the FPMT and similar organizations
must be seen and treated as distinct from Hindu-based Tantra in
the West.

Both Buddhist scholars and Gelugpa
lineage leaders see Tantra as a method for attaining enlightenment
within the Mahayana view (6). While
Buddhist Tantra is founded on intimate personal experience of reality
as Guenther suggests (7), it is also founded on Mahayana Sutric
study, practice, and orientation (8). Tsongkhapa, recognized
as the founder of the Gelugpa lineage by the FPMT, delineates the
Sutric and Tantric aspects of the path as cause and effect (9). Sutra
is the causal vehicle; its practice accrues the positive merit needed
to purify the mindstream in preparation for enlightenment, while
Tantra is the resultant vehicle. The result is taken into
the path in the sense that one visualizes the end-result, oneself
as a fully-enlightened deity, having the ultimate nature of emptiness. In
the commentary to a Medicine Buddha initiation conducted
in 2005, the Vajra master stated, “with Sutra you are an ordinary
being, with Mantra oneself is the deity and the place itself is
like the pure realm; the outcome is bringing on the path; enlightenment
is involved in the moment of sitting” (10).

Within the FPMT, scriptural
authority rests with the writings of the Gelugpa lineage leaders,
and especially with those of its founder, Lama Tsongkhapa. Of
his two seminal treatises, The Great
Exposition of the Stages of the Path, theLam Rim,and The
Great Exposition of Secret Mantra, the teachings and practices
of the FPMT are manifestly based on the former treatise, which outlines
the characteristic Gelugpa presentation of the path to enlightenment
and its stages (11). According to Cutler, all the books on
the stages of the path from the Gelugpa perspective ‘published
until now’ are derived from this work (12). Lam Rim
texts divide the path to enlightenment into three scopes. The
small scope is for those who wish to avoid a lower suffering rebirth
in a future life, and gain a happy rebirth by learning to live in
harmony with the law of karma. The medium scope is for those
who desire to be free from samsâra by becoming familiar
with the path to liberation, and being liberated from ignorance. The
great scope is for those who adhere to the Mahayana motivation,
also referred to as the bodhicitta (spirit of enlightenment)
motivation, to attain the state of enlightenment to free all sentient
beings from suffering (13).

This progression is mirrored in the three volumes of the Lam
Rim edited by Cutler. The first volume deals with the
concerns of the first two scopes, and prepares the practitioner
for Mahayana practice by setting out the preliminary practices
for the development of bodhicitta (14). The second
volume is devoted to the motivation and practice of the bodhisattva,(15)
which Cutler considers to be the heart of the treatise. The
third volume deals with the theory and practice of concentration
and insight, or calm-abiding and analytical meditation (16). According
to the Lam Rim, one can meditate with any one of the three motivations,
but the three are progressive: each one lays foundations for the
next (17). From the Mahayana perspective, the concerns of
the Theravadin tradition would belong to the first two scopes,
and the Mahayana’s own, concerned with the path of the bodhisattva, to
the third. Accordingly, teachings and practices at Vajrayana
Institute contain those of the three scopes, but emphasize the
concerns and goals of the great scope: development of compassion
and equanimity, generation of bodhicitta, with the intention
of attaining full enlightenment/Buddhahood to benefit all living
beings. According to Tsongkhapa, this is the bodhisattva
motivation (18).

Throughout the teaching curriculum
at Vajrayana Institute two doctrines are continually referred
to in order to reinforce the Mahayana practitioner’s
orientation toward the path: the six perfections of the bodhisattva,
generosity, morality, patience, courage, meditation, and insight,
and the three principal aspects of the path: renunciation, bodhicitta,
and wisdom-realizing-emptiness. These are outlined and explained
continuously throughout Discovering Buddhism, and in the
more traditional style teachings given by the resident Geshe, which
may be an afternoon teaching or a whole course (19). Teachings
and conversation both emphasize the received wisdom that Tantric
practice is the quick way to enlightenment if one has the correct
motivation, and is properly prepared. The three principles, renunciation,
bodhicitta, and wisdom-realizing-emptiness, tend to be taken
on as values that orient practitioners on the path. Renunciation
refers to renouncing the world as a source of gratification and
happiness and the state of mind of attachment. Bodhicitta is
the mind of enlightenment and universal compassion, while wisdom-realizing-emptiness
is understanding and perceiving emptiness. During the commentary
to the Medicine Buddha initiation in April 2005, it was stated that
renunciation is a definite conviction; ‘when one thinks about
the suffering nature of samsara, one develops renunciation. When
one experiences difficulty, one wants a way out of it; when one
can see similar situations in others, one’s motivation transforms
slowly into Bodhicitta. Bodhicitta is developed
with the method of lovingkindness and compassion.’ In
Introduction to Tantra in 2004, the Gates of Tantra were held to
include the three principles, especially “absolutely flawless bodhicitta motivation”,
and equanimity where there were no distinctions between friend,
enemy, stranger (20).

Practitioners relate easily to the notions and practices of cultivating
renunciation and bodhicitta. However, in my experience,
it is hard for them to ground their practice in wisdom-realizing-emptiness;
students struggle conceptually with the meaning of sunyata,
emptiness, and treat it as an understanding that they will receive
as a result of their right aspiration, when karmic conditions are
right for the maturation of their understanding. The idea
of receiving an understanding of emptiness after proper intellectual
and experiential preparation is expressed by two practitioners. The
first said:

I heard Lama Zopa teach last
year and he was really clear about a few things that I’m not really clear about, like you have
to understand the tenet systems if you want to refine your intellectual
understanding of emptiness... You have to prepare for realizations
about all that stuff (21).

The second gave a list of meditative attainments that are necessary
in order to attain wisdom-realizing-emptiness:

To attain enlightenment you
have to realize emptiness... You
must have calm abiding as a prerequisite to Vipassanâ,
and mental pliancy through analysis... You have to have Lam
Rim analysis, then you get to emptiness... You can’t
do it without going through these steps (22).

During the Discovering Buddhism module The Wisdom of Emptiness in
2004, the teacher referred to this need for intellectual and experiential
preparation, explaining that ‘wisdom-realizing-emptiness involves
intellectual and experiential realization working together,’ and
that ‘in order to perceive emptiness, one must develop meditative
concentration first’ (23). During the same course, the
teacher elaborated on the meaning of emptiness-of-self from two
perspectives. The first, the self as the object to be refuted
is the sense-of-self as the subject of formal analytical meditation. The
second is the object we try to protect in our everyday life, the
sense of a permanent self which gives rise to anger, jealousy, attachments
(24). Of these two senses-of-self, the latter is more experientially
available in everyday life, and is consequently the subject of investigation
and speculation by the students and practitioners I interacted with. On
the last night of the course, the students were asked to give a personal
point of view, a short report to the class outlining what we
had obtained from the course. In response, most of those present
noted that they felt less of a need to respond in negative or defensive
ways to confronting or threatening situations. These responses
conveyed the sense that the act of reflecting on the meaning of
emptiness, gave the students an alternative way of viewing their
own behavior and another strategic option to work with in their
everyday life. The dominant reasoning was that if there is
no permanent self to be attacked or hurt, then people didn’t
feel the need to find ways of defending themselves, for instance,
retaliating with anger, and therefore felt more able to “let
things go.” These same people remarked that they were
more able to meditate, and felt more motivated to do so (25). It
is in this second sense that these students apply and work with
the notion of emptiness-of-self, and this becomes an ongoing project
of transformation. In terms of the three principals of the
path, the desire for renunciation and the development of bodhicitta,
and the ongoing project of the deconstruction of the reified ego
become the focus of aspiration and practice for these practitioners.

The FPMT does not hold teachings
or courses specifically on Tantra. The
exception to this is the module Introduction to Tantra in
Discovering Buddhism (26), the eighteen-month introductory course
on Tibetan Buddhism. Of the fifteen modules each of four-to-five
weeks’ duration at one night a week, and each covering a specific
topic, this module outlines the foundations of Tantra, especially
in its relationship to Sutra practice. It is also designed
to convey the seriousness with which Tantra is to be undertaken,
without disclosing much detail about the nature of the practice
itself. In discourse, it is emphasized that one must not get
carried away with Tantra, that sutric study and practice serve as
a foundation for progress on the path to enlightenment even when
one becomes a Tantric practitioner. It is emphasized that
while Sutra uses lovingkindness and compassion, Tantra uses the
energy of craving, desire and attachment. In this respect,
Tantra is not in itself virtuous, and not essentially pure, it becomes
pure with the right motivation.

The four classes of Tantra,
Action, Performance, Yoga and Highest Yoga, are described briefly
to outline how each class builds on the skills and knowledge acquired
through practice of the one preceding it. Action Tantras use external things such as mudras and
mantra recitation. One is helped to do the practice in this
lowest class of Tantra by being connected with external things. The
Dalai Lama draws attention to their emphasis on physical cleanliness
(27). The teacher compared the energy used with the energy
we use when smiling and laughing. In Action Tantra, meditation
on the deity does not involve arising as the deity. Compared
with the focus on external things in action Tantra, Performance
Tantra concentrates more on mental activity, and begins to use the
energy of desire (28). The teacher indicated this class to
be concerned with visualizing the consort deity with desire, and
arising as the deity, even if it is the opposite sex to ourselves. The
third class, Yoga Tantra, involves visualizing the purification
of body, speech, and mind. The meditation practice involves
seeing the self as the deity informing all our acts. Highest
Yoga Tantra was described as the system of highest possible development,
where each deity has a subtle specialty. Not much was said
about this class beyond its involving the generation and completion
stages (29), and the systems of visualization to do with the chakras,
winds and channels (30).

For reasons of secrecy, the
teacher did not elaborate on the practical aspects of Highest
Yoga Tantra beyond this point. She gave
additional theoretical information about how the generation and
completion stages interlink with the grounds and paths, and about
how, when taking the death process into the meditation, its stages
correspond to the Buddha bodies which the fully enlightened being
assumes when entering into Buddhahood (31). Enough information
was given so that one could intellectually grasp significant aspects
of practical developments through the sequence of Tantra classes,
for instance, the progressive intimacy between practitioner and
deity, but without really deriving an appreciation of the experiential
states involved.

Amongst the committed Buddhists
at Vajrayana Institute, the Tantric practitioners do not make
themselves obvious. Information
about engagement in Tantric activity tends to reveal itself in interview
rather than in ordinary conversation. Interview data indicates
that those who have received Tantric initiation hold to the Mahayana
motivation; they practice with the ultimate aim of being of assistance
to others. Generally, Tantra is not discussed as anything
special or as something to hold in awe. Students and uninitiated
sutric practitioners who show an interest in Tantra, want to know
how it relates to Buddhism generally, and do not display morbid
curiosity or set out trying to find easy access to Tantric material
or practice. For instance, before their involvement with
the FPMT, two committed practitioners of my acquaintance had very
strong Tantric-style experiences that were at odds with the environment
in which these experiences occurred: both in Theravada settings. On
attending teachings at FPMT centres, both settled into patterns
of study and practice that included sutric study, and concentration,
analytical, and visualization practices. They both took on
volunteer administration duties, and neither one consider themselves
special or ‘advanced’.

The prerequisite for Tantric
practice within the FPMT from the outset, is the bodhisattva motivation. The Dalai Lama notes
that the bodhisattva vows, eighteen root vows and maintenance of
the aspirational mind of enlightenment are prescribed for Action
and Performance Tantra, and that Tantric Vows are prescribed for
Yoga and Highest Yoga Tantra (32). At Vajrayana Institute
as with all FPMT centres, it is expected that an individual has
taken refuge before taking Tantric initiation. During the
Introduction to Tantra module of the Discovering Buddhism course,
the student is made aware that taking a Tantric initiation implies
that one is taking vows and is therefore a Buddhist. During
the refuge ceremony, one takes as many of the five lay vows as one
feels able to keep. These are to abstain from killing, stealing,
false speech, sexual misconduct, and taking of intoxicants. Individuals
are meant to keep which vows they have taken to themselves, although
one teacher explained that everyone is expected to abstain from
killing. My interview material reveals that while adherents
occasionally break vows they have taken, they do not take them lightly,
but with the best of intention. As one tantric practitioner
related:

I guess I’ve come to the point now of realizing that you
keep your vows as purely as you can to the best of your ability... I
found several much easier than others. The not killing one
I didn’t think about. The not stealing and the not lying
I took really seriously, and of course those in everyday life are
very challenging. The sexual misconduct one I absolutely had
no control over, although I aspired to it. The ones that really
struck were the ones about speech, because the person I was closest
to, my grandmother, had an absolutely wicked tongue, and I inherited
it... And trying to work with that has been one of the challenges
of my practice in this tradition, and I’m noticing since I’ve
taken refuge, I’ve really begun to make progress with that. And
just before I took refuge, I had an angry explosion at work of enormous
dimensions. And I lived with great regret... (33)

The purpose of taking refuge
before one takes Tantric initiation is to ensure that the practitioner
has an ethical foundation on which to base their Tantric commitment
and practice (34). During
Introduction to Tantra in 2004 the teacher explained that Tantra,
using the energy of desire and craving, is not in itself virtuous
nor essentially pure, but becomes pure with the right motivation,
the Mahayana or bodhisattva motivation discussed above. Using
the energy of desire and craving without the motivation of attaining
enlightenment is held to create attachment to the energy and hence
negative karma.

The Sanskrit term Abhiseka, empowerment or conferral of
power, carries the added meaning that through initiation the practitioner
is empowered to do the sadhana or Tantric practice of a
specific deity. It is understood within the tradition that
an initiation may be taken as an empowerment which comes with commitments
or as a blessing where the practitioner gains karmic benefits for
attending and listening to the commentary given by the Vajra master. The
practitioner decides which of the two options they choose by either
reciting or not reciting the vows at a certain point in the initiation. Occasionally
those who attend the initiation as a blessing are unwittingly initiated
by repeating the vows along with other initiands. This can
result in practitioners being given commitments that they know they
cannot keep. When one takes an initiation, practice instruction
comes in the form of commitments, as just indicated. In interview,
those respondents who indicated that they were Tantric initiates
also explained that they took their commitments seriously, even
though they often found them hard to keep. Occasionally, they
would indicate the mental strategies they put in place in order
to keep themselves motivated. One practitioner explained:

At least, the good thing about
having commitments is I’m
doing something. If I didn’t have those commitments
I’d do nothing; there’d be days I’d do nothing... But
it’s really good not to not do the commitments. I’ve
spoken to people, everyone has said if you’ve made the commitment,
it’s very important to keep it; it’s not something to
lightly not do. (35)

One of the significant aspects of Tantric practice spoken about
in Introduction to Tantra and in conversation, is that
the initiand is not told what the commitment will be before the
initiation is taken. To my knowledge the commitment is determined
by the Vajra master, and anecdotal evidence suggests that
it may be unexpectedly light, for instance, “try to say the
deity’s mantra as many times as you can through the week,” or
very heavy by comparison. A commitment may be as finite as, “do
one thousand mantras,” or seemingly infinite, “do (a
certain number) everyday for the rest of your life.” This
can be seen as a psychological safety guard in two ways. First,
it has the effect of warning off the idly curious. Second,
the fact that practitioners are given commitments and are expected
to keep them maintains an approach of seriousness toward Tantra,
and helps the committed practitioner to maintain his or her motivation
to practice. This is an important consideration when it is
remembered that many of these aspirants balance their Buddhist commitments
with the demands of a busy lifestyle. According to the tradition,
there are serious karmic consequences for transgressing one’s
vows (36), and practitioners are made aware of this along with the
fact that if they fail to keep commitments, they can renew their
vows by taking another initiation. In this way, they are given
a viable approach to Tantric practice which helps them to maintain
their motivation toward practice while not making it so seemingly
difficult that practitioners lose heart.

From this it can be seen that
Vajrayana Institute’s teachings
maintain and propagate an attitude of seriousness and respect toward
Tantra. In the manner of its self-representation, it neither
attempts to deliberately conceal nor reveal anything more than practitioners
need to know in order to understand the relationship between the
Sutric and Tantric paths. At the level of social organization
there is a level of privacy which is maintained. Throughout
my involvement with Vajrayana Institute, there have been but a handful
of visible Tantric initiations. Those advertised in Vajrayana
News, the centre’s bimonthly newsletter are either Action
Tantras or the Vajrayogini self-initiation, a Highest Yoga Tantra (37). Here, it seems that the point of secrecy is for the
personal development of the practitioners: the privacy discourages
the practitioner from developing an ego-centered approach to practice
(38). Tantric practitioners do not discuss their Tantric
involvement openly. In interview when I ask them about their
daily practice and meditative experience, they tell me as much as
they feel I need to know, and outline their Tantra commitments where
appropriate alongside their Sutra practice in a matter-of-fact way. In
the words of one such practitioner, “you’re not meant
to blah on about what initiations you’ve taken, I mean it
is meant to be a private thing.” (39)

Several other characteristics
of Tantric activity suggest that in the Western context, the tradition
emphasizes the practitioner’s
motivation and resolve to keep commitments above their ability to
meditate. Ray contrasts the earlier days in India where Tantric
practitioners would receive one initiation and carry out the practice
for many years until they received a realization, with the current
situation in Tibet and the West where people might receive several
initiations through large public ceremonial blessings (40). He
refers to Trungpa Rinpoche who believes that this ‘initiation
collection’ is done out of a need for a source of identity
and security (41). Several respondents had taken Tantric initiation,
and some were ‘serial initiates.’ Example patterns
are: ‘Kalachakra and two Vajrasattva initiations’, ‘Medicine
Buddha, White Tara and Green Tara, Kalachakra initation, Cittamani
Tara which is a higher yoga Tantra of Green Tara, and ‘1000-arm
Chenrezig and Green Tara’.

Much research was conducted
in the 1970s and 1980s on the nature of religious change, with
many sociologists of religion concluding that religious conversion
could be described in terms of identity change. However, while some of these researchers saw the purpose
of religious ritual and conversion rhetoric as indicative of change
that had already occurred, Staples and Mauss saw the use of both
ritual and rhetoric as the attempt to achieve a transformation of
self (42). That practitioners see these rituals, both initiations
and sadhanas, as the means to effect personal change is
supported by comments made by students in class discussion and informal
conversation over the period of fieldwork. In interview no-one
referred to the transformative action of Tantric ritual as anything
distinct from sutric practice. Mental transformation is held
to come about through the same means: through the creation of merit
by positive ritual action which will purify the mindstream allowing
for deeper realizations. In addition, during the discussion
of The Heart Sutra in the Emptiness Module in 2004, while referring
to the practice of deity visualization the teacher stated that visualizing
oneself as a deity is done in order to effect a shift in the sense
of self held by the practitioner (43). This is the way in
which the transformative power of Tantric practice is commonly understood
by my interview respondents.

Personal transformation is the
goal of Tantric practice, but from the view of the tradition,
one’s motivation must be established
and effectively maintained before the deeper personal transformations
effected by Tantric practice can occur. Initiation gives the
practitioner practices to do regularly in the form of commitments:
visualizations and mantra recitations. The taking
of an initiation and commitments wipes out previous commitments,
and so in this way, one gets to start again. More immediate
in its effect than a form of ritual identity construction, it is
a way, although not ideal, of renewing one’s motivation to
practice, which may be necessary on occasions where the pressures
of living have eroded the quality of one’s practice. This
and the preservation of secrecy behind the visibility of Action
Tantra are promoted by the FPMT system itself. In this way,
the motivation of the practitioner is continually highlighted and
reinforced.

The purpose of Tantric practice
is to develop or manifest the qualities of the deity whose practice
the individual engages with. Stated
in Introduction to Tantra, was that ‘the basis of Tantra is
to access the pure Buddha mind,’ and that ‘the idea
behind visualizing the deities is that you are getting in touch
with what’s already there.’ (44) Similarly, the
convenor of the Medicine Buddha practice day held in May
2005, explained that the Medicine Buddha is the archetypal healing
energy in all of us. One practitioner told me:

All these deities are just emanations,
different emanations of the Buddha. It might seem like to people that there are all
these weird goddesses and gods or something that you’re paying
homage to, but it’s all just different emanations of the Buddha
and that’s really different aspects of your own Buddha nature. One
might be enlightened action, one might be ultimate compassion. They’re
just different aspects of the qualities that you want to develop. (45)

In line with the idea that the
real meaning of a Tantra is understood through its practice, the
meanings of the deities arise through the regular practice and
service of them. Scholars have remarked
that the secrecy of Tantra lies in the fact that it is meant to
be practiced and experienced rather than its meaning being evident
in a text (46). According to Wayman, the texts do not contain
enough practical detail for performance, and the guru supplies the
missing detail (47). He also states that due to this, the
deities do not have meanings in the western sense of intellectual
understanding, although westerners want to know the meaning of the
deities and their mantras (48). When I first began
attending teachings at Vajrayana Institute, I was initially surprised
by the seeming lack of systematization or categorization of deities
and their attributions. In teachings, the Buddha families
are sometimes referred to, but their symbolism is not explored in
any analytical manner. Although tables exist outlining correspondences
between the five Dhyani Buddhas and the five aggregates for example,
these are not formally taught as part of doctrine (49). Practitioners
know that Chenrezig is compassion, Tara is compassionate action,
and Vajrasattva is mental purification (50). Instruction given
during the Medicine Buddha practice day in 2005, exemplifies this
point. The convenor noted that throughout the literature,
the names and colors of the Medicine Buddhas are not always consistent,
and occasionally gave direction such as to “try to feel the
presence of the Medicine Buddhas” (51).

Ideally, practitioners are meant
to have some success with meditation before they enter Tantric
practice (52). However, the Dalai
Lama notes that Action and Performance Tantra are practical for
many people, because as opposed to meditating on emptiness or on
a deity, “the meditator is mainly concerned with achieving
clarity of appearance of a divine body, mantra letters and so forth,
and thus cannot mainly meditate on emptiness.” (53) The
majority of practitioners that I interviewed had not attained this
meditative stability, and instead strove for it and used the deity
visualizations as a concentration exercise. As one reported, “the
higher Tantra practitioners, people who have been doing it for a
long time, they can do incredible things with energy channels in
their body. Believe me, I can’t control anything. I’m
at the stage of trying to get my visualizations to be clearer.” (54)

Apart from success with meditation,
successful Tantric practice involves the right mental orientation
on the part of the practitioner. It
seems that the Tantric path involves the ability to see all aspects
of the human being as essentially pure, and as having the ultimate
nature of emptiness. According to the Dalai Lama, in all four
Tantras the body is divine; the ability to see the body this way
is a prerequisite to deity yoga. He maintains that even in
Action Tantra, one is meant to cultivate self-generation, but because
some practitioners cannot, most action Tantras do not clearly present
Deity Yoga. In its practice one must be able to maintain the
view of being a deity and having a divine body, and ‘remain
free from conceptions of ordinariness and of inherent existence.’ (55) One
must value oneself as pure without becoming attached to the sense-of-self
as permanent. For the Western lay practitioner, seeing oneself
as both divine and of the ultimate nature of emptiness, presents
two separate challenges. With respect to the second, from
the data obtained from participant observation and interview, as
stated above, I am convinced that the practitioners of my acquaintance
struggle conceptually with the meaning of emptiness, and expect
to understand it further along the path, when karmic conditions
are right.

With respect to the former challenge,
a significant consideration for the western practitioner is the
way in which they must adapt to the Tibetan understanding of the
relationship between mind and body. Guenther refers to the West as having an extreme dualism
of body and mind, where the mind is seen as having a higher value
than the body, which may become an object of aversion. He
contrasts this with the Tantric view of body and mind as interdependent
and interpenetrating, where the whole person is given equal value (56). Similarly, Samuel refers to the Tibetan understanding
of the mind as embodied (57). This means for the practitioner,
the mind-body complex and its impulses such as desire must be seen
as essentially pure for Tantric practice. More than this,
the practitioner must be able to use desire without becoming attached
to it or its objects. Often discussion in Discovering Buddhism
and other classes at Vajrayana Institute suggests that practitioners
express ambiguity toward mental and emotional states that they have
been taught to see as unwholesome, for example, anger and desire. During
interview, one Sutric practitioner described his own process of
reconciliation between renunciation and desire:

Respondent: What I understand
now as true complete renunciation, is a very profound position,
a profound understanding that everything in our existence is a
form of suffering, and Geshe said that when you have true renunciation,
your desire for liberation, it won’t
be intellectual, it will be an urge.

Interviewer: It will just be an urge that will consume you?

Respondent: Yes, it’s not something that you’ll have
to think about, it’ll just be there. He said that it
doesn’t mean that you give everything up, because if you say
that everything’s suffering, you can understand where people
go off on that tangent, this extreme of giving everything up, you
can understand where they get that from. If they know that
you’re still able to do things without attachment, it’s
a tricky one to get. The example I use with myself, I used
to be quite overweight and I used to eat a lot, and now when I look
back at my relationship with food, it was greedy, attachment, it
was not really satisfying. I’d eat but it wouldn’t
really satisfy me. I was eating for the wrong reasons, and
it was a real grasping relationship with food, whereas now I love
to cook, and I love food, and I prepare food for people, I get a
real enjoyment out of it, but there isn’t this greedy grasping
thing? So I’d sort of used that as an example with myself,
like a renouncing of food as a source of pleasure and satisfaction,
by grasping at it but now that I’ve given it up, I now enjoy
it more than I used to.

Interviewer: It seems to be
something about the nature of that extreme grasping, that pushes
the pleasure away, it’s an odd
one.

Respondent: Exactly, it pushes
the pleasure away. You see
that clearly, it’s when we grasp at things, there’s
that addictive quality of wanting it, it pushes the pleasure out. And
then there’s that other fear in your head, but if I give up
the grasping will I lose it? How can I give up the grasping? There’s
one thing that I always want to ask about, but I’m too embarrassed
to ask about is sex, you know, because it’s got to be one
of the biggest grasping things... The idea in Tantra of using
desire, I’ve never really understood in Tantra how that works. The
one thing that has become clear to me, is that if you can enjoy
things without grasping at them, and you are really freeing up your
attitude towards them, then there’s enjoyment. But where’s
the desire? If you free up your grasping, isn’t your
desire dropping away? That’s how I feel about it. When
I think about it with all sorts of desires, I try to recognize it
for what it is, and I suppose if you can use the desire and recognize
what it is, and mentally say ‘I want to bring this desire
into the path and dedicate it toward the path,’ that’s
given me something to think about. (58)

These comments reflect the respondent’s approach to the problem
of desire and its renunciation, after considerable reflection on
his prior approaches and behaviors related to desire and craving. His
new understanding is a result of incorporating the Buddhist position
into his own thought after the recognition that the impulses were
capable of modification. Bodily and mental impulses, the sources
of attachment and aversion, need to be seen simultaneously as pure
and as things to be renounced. The ideal state of preparation
for Tantric practice, being accomplished in concentration and insight,
and having a view of one’s body and mind as pure and divine,
is an aspirational attainment rather than a reality. It must
be considered that the bodhisattva path as a prerequisite to Tantric
practice orients the mind toward attaining the appropriate view
of self within a framework of compassionate and ideally selfless
motivation, so as to ensure the practitioner’s self-discipline
with respect to the influence of the internal field of bodily, emotional,
and mental energy, on the reification and inflation of the ego. It
seems that sutra practice is necessary to train the mind conceptually
and experientially to avoid the extremes of attachment and aversion
to one’s bodily, emotional, and mental energy. This
is necessary before the basic energy of desire and attachment can
be transmuted into the desire for enlightenment, and harnessed for
Tantric practice.

Conclusion
Through the exploration of the visible characteristics of Tantric
activity as they are manifest within the FPMT’s doctrinal
outlook and practice, it is evident that the FPMT maintains a
strong adherence to the doctrinal foundations of the Gelugpa lineage
and its Mahayana orientation. Urban’s point about
the identification of forms of Tantra through their family resemblances
is supported; one cannot help but see that Tantric practice is
utilized for the goals of Mahayana Buddhism where practitioners
strive to transform their habitual thinking into bodhicitta. Teaching
and ritual activities at Vajrayana Institute in Sydney constantly
reinforce the bodhisattva motivation of practitioners:
that personal growth is to be dedicated to the benefit of others. Overall,
one is left with the impression that correct motivation is more
important than demonstrable achievements such as the collection
of conceptual knowledge and the ability to meditate.

Endnotes

(1) Urban, H. Tantra: Sex, Secrecy, Politics, and Power
in the Study of Religion, University of California Press,
2003.Return
to Text

(3) Guenther,
1972, op.cit.,
p2. Guenther believes
that the word Tantrism has become almost synonymous with Hindu Tantra,
and more is known about it than Buddhist Tantra Return
to Text

(4) Samuel, G. Tantric
Revisionings: New Understandings of Tibetan Buddhism and Indian
Religion, Ashgate, 2005, pp328-329. See
pp329-340 for Samuel’s outline of four lines of approach
to understanding Tibetan Buddhism in the western context: the
need for authoritative knowledge, moral authority, and community,
and technologies of the self.Return
to Text

(5) See
the FPMT website, www.fpmt.org, for information about the organization
and its affiliated centres. When
accessed on 07/04/2007, the website reported to have meditation
centres in 31 countries, monasteries and nunneries in 6 countries,
leprosy clinics, polio clinics, hospices, and publishing houses.Return
to Text

(6) See
Wayman, 1974, op.cit.,
and Ray, R. Secret
of the Vajra World: The Tantric Buddhism of Tibet, Shambala,
2001. See Harvey, P. An Introduction to Buddhist
Ethics: Foundations, Values, and Issues, Cambridge University
Press, 2000, p142, who notes that according to the Gelugpa order
Tantric practices should only be carried out on a sound basis
of monastic practice and Mahayana ethics.Return
to Text

(8) Wayman,
1974, op.cit., pp3-4. Wayman
believes that in order to correctly understand Buddhist Tantra,
it is necessary to first study the Mahayana, especially in its
formal presentation in the Madhyamika and Yogacara schoolsReturn
to Text

(9) Ruegg,
D. “Introduction”, in Tsongkhapa. The
Great Treatise on the Stages of the Path to Enlightenment, Snow
Lion Publications, volume 1, 2000, pp21-22. Ruegg refers to
Tsongkapa’s allusion to the question of how the Vajrayana
path relates to the sutra or prajnaparamita path. Wayman,
1974, op.cit., p4. Wayman refers to Tsongkhapa’s
division of the Mahayana into two; the prajnaparamita method, the
part that is not tantric, and the mantra method, the part this is
strictly Tantric; together, cause and effect.Return
to Text

(10) This
Medicine Buddha initiation was conducted at the Buddhist Library,
Camperdown, Sydney, on April 30 2005.Return
to Text

(11) See
Powers, J. Introduction to Tibetan Buddhism,
Snow Lion Publications, 1995, especially Chapter 15, for the treatment
of Lam Rim in the writings of Lama Tsong Khapa.Return
to Text

(15) Tsongkhapa. The
Great Treatise on the Stages of the Path to Enlightenment, Snow
Lion Publications, volume two, 2004.Return
to Text

(16) Tsongkhapa. The
Great Treatise on the Stages of the Path to Enlightenment, Snow
Lion Publications, volume three, 2002. See also Valham, op.cit., who
states that practitioners of the third scope make their practice
of calm-abiding and analytical meditation on emptiness a cause
for enlightenment.Return
to Text

(17) Kelsang
Gyatso. The Meditation Handbook,
New Age Books, New Delhi, 2002. This is noted by Kelsang
Gyatso, who was influential in the FPMT’s foundation and
early propagation.Return
to Text

(18) Tsongkhapa. Preparing
for Tantra: The Mountain of Blessings, the Mahayana Sutra
and Tantra Press, 1995. Also
see Kelsang Gyatso. The Meditation Handbook, New
Age Books, 2002, pp6-7. Tulku Thondup, in Ray, R. Secret
of the Vajra World: The Tantric Buddhism of Tibet, Shambala,
2001, ppviii-ix. Also see Tulku Thondup for a discussion
of the way in which Tantric initiates practice all three Buddhist
paths: the Hinayana, Mahayana, and Vajrayana. They live
according to the moral codes of Hinayana practice, they maintain
bodhisattva aspirations, and they take the Tantric view of everything
as the path of pure nature.Return
to Text

(19) Teachings
given in FPMT centres can be categorized into two types: the western-style
given by western teachers, and the more traditional style given
by Tibetan sangha members in Tibetan and translated into English
by a translator. Several key differences
exist between the two styles, for instance, the western-style facilitates
more spontaneous teacher-student interaction during the teaching,
and includes meditation practice and experiential exercises to illustrate
points of doctrine. The traditional-style generally consists
of an exposition on a topic or a commentary on a root text. Western
teachers may be sangha members or lay Buddhists, several of whom
at Vajrayana Institute have been trained psychologists. Apart
from the resident geshe, Vajrayana Institute also conducts teachings
by visiting Tibetan sangha members. Information on the centre’s
current teachers is available from the website at www.vajrayana.com.au/teachers.html. Information
on courses of study offered at FPMT centres can be found at www.fpmt.org.Return
to Text

(20) The
module I attended was held in January-February 2004, at Vajrayana
Institute, Newtown, Sydney.Return
to Text

(21) Interview
conducted on 15 January 2004. Lama Thubten
Zopa Rinpoche, the current head of the FPMT is referred to as Lama
Zopa.Return
to Text

(23) The
Wisdom of Emptiness is the last module in the Discovering Buddhism
course. This
module was taught from 11 May-15 June 2004 at Vajrayana Institute.Return
to Text

(24) Module
15: The Wisdom of Emptiness: 11 May-15 June 2004. The
Heart Sutra as it is usually referred to, is recited before every
teaching at Vajrayana Institute.Return
to Text

(25) This
took place on 15 June 2004, the last night of the course.Return
to Text

(26) Introduction
to Tantra, January-February 2004. This
module was taught by a western lay teacher who is also a practicing
psychotherapist, and by her own disclosure, a Tantric initiate.Return
to Text

(28) Hopkins, ibid., p.
210. Hopkins refers to techniques
revolving around and using the bliss arising from the desire for
male-female union which can be seen as an extension of the “smiling” and “looking
with desire” metaphor, used to describe action and performance
Tantra respectively.Return
to Text

(29) The
four classes of Tantra were outlined briefly during Introduction
to Tantra, January-February 2004. The generation stage
involves practices such as mimicking the death process, the stages
of which correspond to the Buddha bodies. Also see Wayman’s
table, 1974, op.cit., p33.Return
to Text

(30) Hopkins,
1987, op.cit., p210. Hopkins
adds that Highest Yoga Tantra is used to cognize emptiness, and
its techniques revolve around using the bliss arising from the
desire for male-female union.Return
to Text

(31) See
Wayman, 1974, op.cit. His
table on p.33 contains this kind of information.Return
to Text

(34) Tenzin
Gyatso, 1987, op.cit., pp15-16. Here
the Dalai Lama outlines the vows for each of the four classes of
Tantra. Those engaged in Action and Performance Tantra take
the Bodhisattva vows: eighteen root vows and maintenance of the
aspirational mind of enlightenment, while those engaged in Yoga
and Highest Yoga take Tantric Vows.Return
to Text

(35) Interview
conducted on 3 March 2004. This practitioner
was willing to discuss which Tantric initiations she had taken,
her appreciation of the ethical aspects of tantric practice, and
some of the experiential effects of her own practice.Return
to Text

(36) See
Tsongkhapa. Tantric Ethics: An Explanation of the
Precepts for Buddhist Vajrayana Practice, Gareth Sparham translator,
Wisdom Publications, 2005, pp115-131. Chapter five, How to
Keep a Tantric Ordination, is a commentary on the consideration
of thinking about the benefits of protecting, and the penalties
of not protecting the vows.Return
to Text

(37) Notice
of initiation are given in the Centre’s newsletter,
Vajrayana News. This can be viewed at www.vajrayana.com.au/newsletter.html. I
have been aware of a small number of Action Tantra initiations taking
place locally over the few years of my involvement, with three of
them taking place in 2005.Return
to Text

(42) See
Snow, D, and Machalek, R. “The Sociology of
Conversion”, in Annual Review of Sociology 10. pp.
167-90, Ralph H. Turner editor, Annual Reviews Inc., California,
1984, for an outline of the former view. See Staples, C, and
Mauss, A. “Conversion or Commitment? A Reassessment
of the Snow and Machalek Approach to the Study of Conversion”,
in Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion 26 [2],
pp. 133-147, Donald Capps editor, the Society for the Scientific
Study of Religion, 1987, for the latter.Return
to Text

(43). See
the description of practitioners’ orientation toward
emptiness-of-self above, and footnote 25 above.Return
to Text

(51) The
Medicine Buddha practice day was held on 28 May 2005, at Vajrayana
Institute, Newtown, Sydney.Return
to Text

(52) Ray,
2001, op.cit., p177,
states that the initiate is supposed to have achieved some success
with concentration. Wayman,
1974, op.cit., pp110-11, refers to the fact that concentration
and insight, calming the mind and discerning the truth, are considered
to be the backbone of Sutric and Tantric practices.Return
to Text

Staples, C, and Mauss, A. “Conversion
or Commitment? A Reassessment of the Snow and Machalek Approach
to the Study of Conversion”, in Journal for the Scientific
Study of Religion 26 [2], pp. 133-147, Donald Capps editor,
the Society for the Scientific Study of Religion, 1987.